The Sin Within The Sin
by Mendeia
Summary: Just get in and get out, right? A job just like any other...until everything goes sideways. Now Nate's team is ducking armed guards on one side and legendary assassins on the other - and their resident hitter has enough history to bring them all down. Oneshot, crossover with the anime Noir.


Hey everyone!

So, from the first time I watched The Big Bang Job, all I could think about was the similarity between Eliot's skills and those of the amazing women from the anime Noir. Plus, we have enough hints of secret conspiracies and international organizations that mixing the worlds makes just too much sense.

In the Leverage-verse, you can plop this pretty much anywhere in Season 4, I think. Even Season 5 if you prefer. It's not really specific - just prior to the end of the series.

For those who don't know Noir, I cannot recommend enough checking out the series on YouTube – they're uploaded legally and officially by Funimation fully dubbed/subbed. It's basically two women of Eliot's caliber of badassery trying to solve the riddle of their lives while working as assassins. Even just go watch the first episode and you'll see what I mean about how awesome these women are. There are pieces of spoilers for Noir in here, though theoretically not enough to ruin the series for you if you get into it.

But don't worry if you don't go watch Noir first; Eliot will give you enough information for the purposes of this story. He's got some things to explain to his team this time.

Enjoy!

* * *

" _The man within the man, the love within the love, the sin within the sin."_

* * *

This was exactly the sort of job Eliot hated the most. It was one thing to scam rich businessmen who were ruining lives for profit where the most he might have to do was take out some rented corporate goons who wore suits and escorted people by the elbow. But sneaking through a shadowy mansion to steal back some documents from an underworld figure - a mansion populated by a private security force, a private, _armed_ security force - it was like going head-to-head with a mob family.

And it reminded him all too much of Damien Moreau.

Except with more gold filigree everywhere.

"It really wouldn't take that long," Parker was whispering over the comms. "Give me ten minutes and I could clear the whole north wing."

"Parker. Focus." Nate's voice held no hint of a smile, and yet Eliot could tell he was amused. "No gold-stealing."

"What if I steal it on the way out?"

Nate sighed, the air whistling faintly over the open line. "Okay. _If_ we manage to lift the documents without getting caught, and _if_ no one gets wise to us in here, and _if_ the alarms don't go off for any other reason, you can steal gold in the last room before your exit."

"You're no fun."

"Last _two_ rooms, then."

"Deal!"

Eliot glanced to Hardison creeping along at his side. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. Hardison quirked a smile and shrugged as if to say, _Parker's incorrigible. What can you expect?_

 _Not much else. Let's hope it doesn't get her killed._

But Eliot didn't bother voicing that thought. He was worried enough about tonight's run.

Normally Nate's infiltration plans put everyone inside at different times and under different covers so if one person was blown, the others could still act freely. This particular Mark, however, hadn't been so easy to crack. Only Sophie had managed a front-door entrance thanks to the fact that she had actually had business dealings with this particular Mark before. She'd had to pull out one of her finest stolen forgeries to convince him to discuss the possibility of financing a heist to replace it for the real piece. Everyone else had been left to enter by mingling with the grounds-crew during the day and laying low until the early hours of the morning.

Eliot was absolutely certain he did not want to think about what Nate did squirreled away in Sophie's room for most of those hours, both their earpieces out of range, but he was equally certain it _had_ to be better than listening to Hardison and Parker play word games for the better part of ten hours crouched in separate security blind-spots.

If those two could hone that act, though, they could take it on the road as top-notch interrogators. An hour of that nonsense and the most hardened badass would be _crying_ for a beat-down instead.

Now, Parker was focused on reaching the secured safe in the Mark's office, as well as making off with the gold that adorned every single architectural feature in the building. Sophie and Nate had emerged from their "planning session" and had separated - Sophie settling in the upstairs salon with the Mark to get flirtatiously drunk and keep him distracted, Nate securing their exit through the kitchens by chatting up the late-night staff who rarely saw the daytime bosses.

And Eliot was making sure Hardison got into position to finish hacking the computer system without trouble.

For once, so far, that had worked out. Hardison was a chatty nuisance most of the time, but he had learned in the last three and a half years when to shut up. Which was mostly when Eliot _told_ him to shut up. But sometimes the right combination of glare and gesture got the message across, too. Eliot knew he could handle one or two of the guards if they were spotted in the dark hallways, but he didn't dare risk a fight and raise the alarm unless he had no choice. His team was too spread out, too exposed, and every bit of intel they had on the situation suggested these mooks were of the highest quality.

Another disturbing similarity to Moreau. He hired the best - lots of them.

The whole situation was reminding Eliot uncannily of being on the other side of this scenario, when he had been the one in the corner of Moreau's salon watching him flirt with whatever girl was stupid enough to play games with Damien and bracing for an attack at any moment. In his years with Moreau, there had been quite a few. Most who got as far as actually infiltrating the house at night died in a hail of bullets from Eliot's best men if not Eliot himself.

It was a conclusion he did _not_ want to see played out tonight. He could watch out for Hardison, and his mental map told him he could make it to Nate pretty quickly, but the girls were in the wrong wing of the building and on different floors - if he spooked the Mark's security, he'd never reach them before they were caught and eliminated.

"Dude." Hardison whispered right in his ear, the one without the comm. "If you keep growlin' like that, they're gonna start wondering who brought the pitbull to work today."

Sophie chuckled, then turned it into a more throaty laugh for the Mark. Parker snorted. Only Nate had the good sense not to laugh at his hitter when Eliot was in a snarling mood.

But Eliot would deal with the rest of them later. "We're here," he said in an undertone, pushing open the door to one of the satellite security rooms. Earlier in the evening, Parker had crept through the vents of the house and had put a heavy sleeping drug in the coffee of the guards responsible for this particular room, so they were already out when he and Hardison entered.

Eliot locked the door and set about taping the unconscious guards to their chairs, gagging them as well while Hardison plopped down and plugged his current laptop into the computer array.

"I'm in." Hardison kept his voice low even though the room was secure. Eliot didn't acknowledge it, but he approved nonetheless. "Parker, hang tight while I work my magic."

"Okey-dokey."

Sophie was recounting an outrageous tale of cat-and-mouse played between herself and what she described as a 'dashing hero lacking only a white crown' and Eliot was uncomfortably sure she meant Nate. But Sophie's 'con voice' as they knew it was pitched to be easily ignored over the comms and Eliot allocated only enough of his attention to notice if she showed any signs of distress. Nate was quiet, too, apparently enjoying a cup of late-night coffee.

 _And I'm stuck with the geek. Again._

Resentment kept Eliot sharp. He didn't have time to be jealous of Nate's coffee, and he had even less time to be fond of the computer hacker muttering to himself and clacking away at his keyboard. There was something about this whole scenario that kept bugging him, something that didn't feel right.

But he'd said as much an hour ago. And Nate had pointed out that they didn't walk away from a job based only on that little of a gut feeling. Eliot would need something more substantial. Or at least more paranoid.

It was a mark of Nate's respect for Eliot that he considered walking away at all at nothing more than Eliot's vague discomfort. Eliot's instincts had been honed in blood and battle and death, and Nate had learned to heed them. Eliot knew if he had insisted, even if he had just asked them to pull out, Nate would have trusted him. But by the time the wrongness began they were already so deep into the Mark's territory that an abrupt escape would be more dangerous than seeing the job through to the end.

"Okay, mama. The system's mine. Do your thing."

"On it." Eliot could hear the grin in Parker's voice.

"Sophie?" Nate asked. "Any change?"

"Everything's so _tedious_ these days. _Nothing_ at all to capture the imagination," Sophie said.

 _Well, at least someone is bored_ , Eliot thought. _Bored right now means safe. Bored means alive._

"Hey Nate?" Hardison asked.

Eliot perked up and left his spot by the door and the prisoners to look over his shoulder.

"What is it?"

"There's a buncha files here on a private server, not even linked to anything outside the house. Looks like financials for some kinda organization."

"Dig fast, Hardison. If we've got other players on the scene, we need to know it now."

Hardison rolled his eyes at Eliot and launched into his new search. Eliot didn't bother to watch whatever ridiculousness Hardison was typing as coding languages made him want to put his fist through things. But he could see summaries and images of files as they flashed by on the screen while Hardison rifled through them.

Suddenly he caught an icon that made him go cold all over. "That one." He pointed.

Hardison blinked at him but complied, pulling the document up in full so they could read it.

Eliot's eyes fixed on a symbol at the top of the page. A circle. Two upright figures. A pair of swords.

"We gotta abort, Nate!" Eliot reached forward and slammed Hardison's laptop closed, heedless of any permission or lack thereof from Hardison, ignoring his annoyance, ignoring anything but the only thing that mattered. "Abort _now_!"

"What is it?" Nate's voice went urgent but there was no disbelief in him.

"The Mark's a member of Les Soldats!"

Eliot could hear Nate half-choke, but he gathered himself quickly. "Eliot's right. Everybody! Get out _now_! Blow the con, blow your covers, I don't care. But _get out_!"

"What's Les Soldats?" Parker asked. There was the slightest sound of metal vibrating, the telltale sign of her retreating into ceiling ducts.

"It's just a myth," Hardison said, glaring at Eliot who was hauling him up and stuffing his laptop in his bag. "One of those internet rumors people make jokes about. It's not real."

"Oh, it's real, Hardison," Nate said, low and tense. "And we are in _way_ over our heads." His words took on the clipped cadence of his brain moving at true mastermind speeds. "Sophie, I'll meet you at the third rendezvous point in two minutes."

"Will you excuse me, please?" Sophie chirped. "I'm feeling a little...flushed. I'd like to freshen up." She made it sound like a promise of more to come and the Mark folded like a lovestruck teenager.

Eliot's own mind was racing. He knew the full layout of the mansion, knew his position, knew the quickest way to get Hardison clear and off the grounds. But there were guards everywhere, armed, and now he knew why the situation was so familiar.

Moreau had been allied with Les Soldats, too. And they really were the best.

"We're not blown yet," Nate was saying in their ears. "Until somebody hits the alarm, stay low. But don't stop moving until you're clear. And if you hear fighting, stay out of it."

"Nate's right." Eliot managed to get Hardison's stupid bag onto his shoulder and pulled him to the door. "You're not gonna be able to knock these guys out with a vase. The only way for any of you to beat them is if they _do not see you_."

"Parker, get to the roof. If they start shooting, I don't want you in the walls. It'll be a kill box."

"Thanks for _that_ image, Nate. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. Or panicky. Or I'd feel real claustro-panicky right now."

Nate cut off from them and his voice went smooth as he talked his way past another person in the servants' hallways near the kitchens. Eliot took the respite and hauled Hardison out into the corridor.

"Stay behind me. And don't you _dare_ try to go up against one of these guys."

Hardison's whisper was low, picked up only by the earbud. "Are you gonna tell me why some internet rumor's got you shaking in your boots?"

"It's _not_ a rumor, Hardison. Les Soldats is an organization that goes back centuries."

"Are they really a secret bunch of assassins who run the world?"

"Secret? Yeah. Assassins? _Hell_ yeah. Run the world? Not completely. Not yet, anyway."

"Why not?" Parker asked. "If they could just kill everybody, wouldn't it be easy?"

"That's _how_ they run the world, or at least the underworld." Sophie was whispering now. "Even the oldest mob families know they can't cross Les Soldats or risk having their entire leadership eliminated. Sometimes they take on the above-board world, too, but in the last few years they've practically dropped off the map."

"How come?" Hardison wanted to know.

Eliot knew the answer, but he didn't dare provide it. The way his luck tended to work, that would just summon that answer down on all their heads. So he focused on keeping his body between Hardison and everything else and listening for any threats. If the only protection he could give his team was ignorance, he would give it gladly. What they didn't know maybe couldn't hurt them.

If they _did_ know, if it _did_ come, none of them would survive the night.

-==OOO==-

Nate noted that Eliot went quiet, the sort of feral quiet that reminded him of a panther or a tiger hunting.

 _He probably knows. If he's not saying, he's got reason._ Nate couldn't argue with it. He assumed Eliot knew more about Les Soldats than himself, but Nate knew enough. Too much, really.

Too much not to think about what he had led his team into this time.

And if he could even hope to lead them out.

In their years working together as a group, Eliot had never let them down. He had answered their every call for help, had stood against odds and opponents that a squad of trained soldiers couldn't have defeated. Their hitter wasn't invincible, but he was nigh unstoppable.

Nate had never asked, had never wanted to know, if Eliot Spencer had learned to be that way from Les Soldats - but he couldn't deny the possibility.

And now they were in a house filled with hitters of Eliot's quality, and maybe his training. Nate calculated that there were only two advantages his team would have in getting away from so many potentially lethal guards.

First, so far, no one knew any of the team were even there except for Sophie, and the guards probably wouldn't hurt her without permission from the Mark.

Second, as dangerous and deadly as they were, Les Soldats were not terribly creative. They were trained to be elite bodyguards and assassins, masters of weaponry and honed to kill on instinct. But because they so rarely did anything else, they didn't expect enemies to approach them smiling and chatting.

 _Of us all, Sophie's the most likely to get out safely. You can't con a bullet, but you can definitely con someone who only sees danger from a bullet. If it comes to it, they might underestimate Parker, too, and she can talk fast when she needs to. Hardison will be safe with Eliot. And I…_

A figure appeared in the hallway in front of him.

 _Uh oh._ "What are you doing down here?" He tried to strike a balance between authoritative and confused, hoping whoever had found him would assume whatever they expected to see down here and he could run with their assumption until he was clear.

Nate did _not_ expect to hear the tell-tale click of a woman's heels on the floor.

"Uh, hello? Mind if I turn on a light?"

He reached to the nearest wall and flicked the switch. He got a brief impression of long, blonde hair, big blue eyes, and surprise before a gun - _With a silencer, oh boy_ \- flashed and the light above him went abruptly dark.

"Guys." He tried to keep the tremble out of his whisper, even though there wasn't a person on the team who couldn't read fear as easily as breathing. "I've got a situation. Abort and get out. Sophie, I'm sorry."

"Nate, what - ?"

But he couldn't afford to listen to them anymore. Slowly, Nate lifted his hands in surrender. "I'm unarmed. I'm not who you think I am."

"I know who you are." Her voice was steady and her accent was some kind of Corsican-Parisian mix. "That's why you're still alive. For now."

-==OOO==-

Parker was certain she could hear Eliot's heart plop into his shoes like the sound of her rigging falling to pile up at the bottom of an air shaft. After being cut.

She paused just below the access hatch to the roof, cold prickling against her skin.

Nate had said to abort, to get out.

Eliot was scared.

Nate had said not to get near any fighting.

Eliot was getting ready for the worst.

Nate wasn't going to be able to meet Sophie.

Eliot and Hardison were at the wrong end of the house.

Nate and Eliot both wanted her to get out.

But neither of them were close to getting out yet themselves.

Nobody was.

Parker edged back down the shaft, decision made. She was scared - if Eliot was scared, it was usually a good time to be scared, too - but she also didn't want to be the only one to make it out. If she got away clean and no one else did…

It would be better to be with them inside than alone outside now.

Parker whispered into the thick silence over the comms. "Change of plans. Sophie, I'm coming to you instead."

She knew she didn't imagine the relief in Nate's slight release of breath.

"Dammit, Parker." Eliot was growling, much worse than when Hardison had teased him before. "You get clear and you don't look back."

"I will," she said. "When Sophie's with me. You get Hardison and Nate."

It seemed perfectly reasonable. Parker wasn't a hitter like Eliot, but she had her taser, he had taught her some moves, and she wasn't afraid to fight people. Maybe she couldn't storm the house and save the entire team the way Eliot could, but she was close to Sophie and she could protect her enough to make a difference. Sophie was brave, too, but she hadn't spent as long with Eliot learning how to hit people hard as Parker had.

"Parker, I don't think…" Hardison began.

" _Neither_ of you is thinking." Eliot's fear had turned to fury. Normally, that was comforting - it meant he was ready to really fight and nothing would stop him. Today, it made Parker's chest get tight.

"Parker, I don't want you to endanger yourself, either," Sophie said.

"I won't. I'll just come get you."

Eliot bit out, "It's not that simple."

"Sure it is."

She wasn't being naive, no matter what anyone else would say. It wasn't that Parker didn't understand that the danger level on this job had gone from a ten-story building to the Sears Tower. She _did_ understand.

But that didn't matter. This was her team, more than a team. And they were in this together. So she would help get them out together.

Simple as finding the combination to a safe.

A sharp, muted staccato sound came over the comm and Parker held her breath to listen. Gunshots, fired with a silencer. Before they even finished, there was a grunt and a series of quick breaths. Parker could almost see Eliot pushing Hardison down behind something and holding him there.

"We're boxed in," Eliot said. "They'll be calling in our position now."

"So what do we do?" Hardison asked.

"You're going to stick with me until I get us closer to the exterior. Then you're going out whatever window you can get open and you're going to have to run for the fence. Don't get shot."

" _Thanks_ , man."

"I'm serious."

"What about you, then?"

"You heard Parker. I've got to get Nate out."

Sophie spoke up. "Nate? Nate, can you hear me?"

Nothing.

Hardison gulped. "He could be…"

"He's _not_." Eliot's darkest snarl was a pure reflex. "I'm getting him out, too."

"He probably took his earbud out," Parker said. "To concentrate."

"Yeah, and I'm about to do the same."

"Don't you _dare_."

Parker couldn't help but smile at the ferocity in Hardison's voice. That was a voice he reserved for fighting with Cha0s and people who took money from hospitals. And people who threatened his team.

"Dammit - "

"Don't you 'dammit Hardison' me! You leave that thing in there! No matter what!"

"I ain't got time to argue with you!"

"Good! So all you can do is agree with me!" There was a pause. Then, "Eliot. I don't know exactly what's going on, but I get that it's bad. And when it's really bad, that's when we need to hear you the most."

"There are some things I don't want you to have to hear."

Parker felt the thaw in Eliot's words, the heart he hid behind so much growly fury.

Hardison beat her to a response, though. "I'd rather hear it and know what happened to my friend than not."

Eliot actually snorted. "You're an _idiot_." But he apparently left the earbud in because Parker could hear both of them scrambling along.

"Parker?" Sophie asked.

"Almost there."

"I'm worried about Nate."

"Me too."

"Do you think we can reach him?"

Parker didn't shake her head - she had finally learned to remember that they couldn't hear it over the comms. "Only if you want to come with me through the vents."

"I'm not afraid of crawling, Parker."

"Are you wearing those ridiculous shoes again?"

"They are not ridiculous!"

"Kick them off and we'll see how you do."

"Parker," Eliot's voice was a rumbly whisper, "do _not_ take Sophie into the vents. Just get to her and get out. Both of you."

"I'm not leaving any of you behind," Sophie said. "If I have to crawl through dark spaces filled with bugs and who knows what else, _barefoot_ , I'll do it. I'm not actually a delicate fainting flower, Eliot."

"I know you ain't. But this…" He stopped.

"Eliot?" Parker asked.

"Hardison." Eliot's voice was louder now, and he was clearly not speaking to the ones listening in his ear. "Stay behind me. Keep your computer bag in front of your chest. And if I give the word, you run for it."

"Did...did he kill all these guards? In, like, one minute? _How?_ "

"Not 'he', Hardison. _She_."

-==OOO==-

What Nate might have expected from his brief glimpse at the woman wielding the gun, if she didn't shoot him at once, was an immediate interrogation. Barring that, some threats and being taken hostage. If she didn't do any of those things, he would have thought some bargaining was the most likely possibility.

But she simply stood, staring at him.

 _Maybe she has a comm, too._

If so, she was being distracted by it, as distracted as he was by the chatter in his head while Parker ignored his perfectly clear plans and did her own thing _again_. But once he knew Parker had decided to protect Sophie, he felt better about shifting his hands very slightly and making nervous fidgeting into a smooth extraction of the earbud, which he dropped into his sleeve.

 _I don't want any of you to hear whatever she's going to do to me. And the less you know about her, the less likely she'll kill you all._

He didn't see or hear the gun move - Nate could only see a sudden muzzle-flare and felt the air swirl around him as bullets streaked by, echoed by the bark of the silenced gun. A glow flashed from behind and he turned. Two bodies were already falling, one dropping a flashlight that sounded impossibly loud when it hit the floor and rolled about, casting light and shadow everywhere.

Nate turned back. "Thank you?"

"I know who you are. I know your crew." Her steps were even louder than the flashlight, and Nate knew she was making noise just to scare him - if she had wanted, she could have moved as silently as the darkness as she drew near. But she did not get so close that he could easily charge her.

Nate decided to fall back to what worked best for him when all else failed - the truth. "Then you know that we're no threat to you."

"You're _here_." There was a curl of distaste in her voice. "But you do not work for Les Soldats."

"No."

"You employ one who does, though."

 _Oh, Eliot._ "Maybe he did once, but he hasn't been with them for a long time."

"I know about Damien Moreau."

"Let me guess. He was Les Soldats, too?"

"Yes. He deserved a worse fate than you gave him."

Her distaste had turned to anger. Nate added that to the pieces in his mind, twisting through variables and possibilities and facts in a desperate swirl which he hoped would end with a solid, survivable plan.

"Actually, I agree with you." And he did. Damien Moreau had burned Eliot Spencer to the soul. Anyone who hurt Nate's crew deserved a hell of the most _innovative_ design. "But we didn't have time for anything more...elaborate."

Silence.

Nate struck out with one informational feeler. "Listen, we were only here to steal some documents. We don't care about anything or anyone else in the house. We're not here to fight you."

No response. _Is that good? Bad? How do you read a goddess of death?_

He tried again. "If there's something you want from me, I'm sure we can talk it out."

"I don't want you."

An ugly possibility coiled through Nate's mind.

 _Les Soldats. Moreau. Eliot. She could be here for revenge…or maybe recruitment. Who knows?_

 _But if she's here for Eliot, she's going to have to go through me to get him._

 _Which she might do anyway._

Nate struck a slightly teasing smile. In the light from the swaying flashlight, he could see her somewhat, and he was sure she could make out his features as well.

"Well...if you aren't looking for me and my team, does that mean we can go?"

 _Did I imagine it, or did the gun waver for just a moment?_

"I don't know."

 _Huh?_

"We came to kill all the members of Les Soldats we could find. You aren't a member. Unless you try to kill me, I won't shoot."

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"But." _She definitely quirked a smile. That's something, anyway._ "My partner and I do things differently. I'm not planning to shoot you, Nathan Ford, unless you force me to do it."

"But this partner of yours?"

"She might kill your whole team where they stand." She paused. "Especially Eliot Spencer."

-==OOO==-

Hardison stared over Eliot's shoulder, wishing for the millionth time that he wasn't taller than the hitter. Eliot was only a few inches shorter than himself, and normally that didn't matter - he could beat up people twice his size without breaking a sweat.

But when Eliot was functioning as a human shield, that left a _lot_ of area uncovered.

A door to the side burst open, spilling light into the junction of corridors. Faster than Hardison could even track, the figure who had stood silently in the center of a bloodbath turned and the pair of suited goons fell before they'd even crossed into the hallway.

The open door illuminated the many bodies and the blood - and their killer.

Hardison couldn't help it. "Are you _kidding_ me?"

"Shut up, Hardison."

If he'd thought Eliot-the-undersized-hitter was A Thing, he had no idea what to do with the slip of a girl who faced him with piercing brown eyes and not a drop of blood anywhere on her clothing. In spite of the streaks of it _everywhere else_.

Her gun shifted back to them, and now Hardison realized it was pointing at Eliot's head.

"I'm not with them," Eliot said.

"You were."

"Yeah." Then, "I remember you."

She nodded. "Damien Moreau. You almost got us."

Eliot huffed and it almost sounded like a laugh. "Not even close."

"Closer than most ever get." Her speech was stilted. It took Hardison a moment to realize that she had a faint Japanese accent, but clearly had trained it out of her English with some effort. Only someone who worked with a grifter might catch it.

"I'm not with Moreau anymore, either. My team...they're not like him. Not like I used to be."

A change went over the girl's face, though Hardison couldn't exactly identify it. "I understand."

Eliot took a breath in such a way that Hardison knew meant he was taking a serious risk. "Are you still Noir?"

"No. And yes." She did not blink. "Noir's black hands were born for Les Soldats. We don't belong to anyone but ourselves. But we are following a similar path."

"We?" Hardison couldn't help but ask.

"Noir is a name for two," Eliot said. He didn't turn to Hardison as he recited something he had clearly memorized. "Noir is the name of an ancient fate. Two maidens who govern death."

The figure across from them added, "The peace of the newly born, their black hands protect."

Hardison blinked. "Black hands?"

"They're assassins," Eliot said. "A caliber above Les Soldats. The way you're a hacker not like any other hacker."

"Thanks, I think."

"It was a compliment."

Hardison smiled. Then he figured it out. "So...they're _that_ good?"

"Hardison, if she wanted to kill us, we'd have been dead before we got around the corner."

"How? You ain't tellin' me she can shoot around corners, right?"

"She can shoot _through_ them."

"Not possible."

Eliot stepped on his foot - _hard_. "Do me a favor. _Don't_ ask her to prove it." His focus shifted back to the girl. "My hands are as black as yours. And I don't even have the justification you did. I just took orders. I was… Moreau's dog."

Hardison wanted to put a hand on Eliot's shoulder. Hell, he wanted to spin him around and maybe hug him and definitely make him forget the desperation and despair of those words. But Eliot's shoulders were up and he had a feeling if he moved the tenuous peace might shatter.

And he didn't see any way for that to end without bloodshed. Maybe a lot of it.

"Even if you were his dog, you are still Eliot Spencer," the girl said. "One who defeated Noir."

"I didn't and we both know it. I got lucky that night." He tensed even more, if that was possible. "Did your partner recover okay?"

"Yes. Or you would already be dead."

Eliot gave a short nod. "That's fair." He paused. "Then you'll understand why I can't let you kill my team. Any of them."

"How many?"

"Four of them. This one, two women, and another man. They're not like us. They're not...they're thieves and this one's a hacker and they _help_ people. They're _good_."

"You're good, too, Eliot," came a whisper in their ears. Sophie and Parker were mostly listening, but Hardison knew Sophie couldn't let that one slide.

"Whether you're Noir or not, if you have to kill me, I understand." Eliot did not acknowledge Sophie at all. "But I can't let you hurt my team."

The girl's eyes widened slightly. "You're different now."

Eliot nodded. "I was alone. Even with Moreau. _Especially_ with Moreau. Now I have them."

Hardison almost puffed up with pride except he was afraid it would get him hit. Or shot.

Eliot wasn't finished, however. Hardison felt the shift in his tone as he spoke the way he did on a normal con. The only way Eliot knew how to grift. It was as gruff as his normal state, but with an edge of warmth, like sunlight shining on the edge of a glacier.

"You and your partner...you could walk away, too. Leave Noir behind. Become something else."

"And the sins I carry? They will still stain me. My hands will still be black. Like yours."

"Yeah. But hands bathed in blood can still protect people worth protecting."

The girl's expression broke and her lips twitched as if imitating a first smile. "That's what Mireille says."

Then her gaze tightened and she fired.

-==OOO==-

"Eliot!" Sophie barely managed not to scream.

"Hardison." Parker's whisper was sharp. Then she reached back and tugged on Sophie's wrist. "This way. Come on."

The comm was full of the sounds of fighting and gunshots now, and there was too much noise to make out anything besides grunting and death screams in voices that could have belonged to anyone.

Could have been their boys.

Parker looked back at Sophie. "We're _not_ leaving them."

"I agree. But we can't leave Nate, either."

"Let's get him first," Parker said. "We need to let that fight die down before we drop into the middle of it."

Without waiting, Parker sped through the air ducts towards the part of the building where she knew Nate had last been. It was possible he had moved - it was possible he had _been_ moved, it was possible he was _gone_ \- but she couldn't do anything but follow him anyway and hope he left her a clue.

"Here." Parker could unscrew a grate in a wall faster than most people could count to ten. Before Sophie had even caught up with her, Parker was climbing out into the open room and giving her a hand.

"I've got more respect for your job than ever before," Sophie muttered. Parker grinned.

A gun went off nearby.

Sophie and Parker dove for cover. They'd come out in a pantry beside the kitchens and it sounded like whoever was shooting was right on the other side of the pantry door. Parker and Sophie started arming themselves as best they could - Parker with a quickly-upended heavy pail and Sophie with a discarded broom - and approached the door.

"On three," Parker said. "One."

Sophie hefted her broom.

"Two."

Parker reached for the doorknob.

The door opened abruptly.

"Three," Nate said.

-==OOO==-

 _Oh, there'll be hell to pay for that little joke, but it was so worth it._

He grinned at their wide-eyed faces and glanced over his shoulder. "All clear?"

"Yes."

He turned back. "Come on. We've got to get to the boys."

Parker, unpredictably irrational at the strangest moments, chose that one to be utterly calm. Though she did drop her bucket right on his foot as she sailed out of the pantry and faced the blonde woman snapping a new clip into her gun in swift, easy motions.

"Who's she?"

Sophie very nearly slapped Nate but was stopped at Parker's question. Nate got an arm around her shoulders and pulled her forward. He figured he was still going to get slapped later.

"Sophie, Parker, meet Mireille. She's here to, well, pretty much kill everybody in the place except for us."

Mireille gave a faint smile. "We should get moving. Kirika's more impulsive than I am."

"Is that the other girl Eliot was talking to?" Parker asked.

Mireille looked confused, then glanced at Nate. "You have radios?"

"Earbuds," Sophie said. "Very useful for teamwork."

"I see." Mireille headed for the door out of the kitchen. "However, I think we can find our friends without use of them."

"Yeah. Follow the sound of shooting," Parker said. But she slipped into place between Mireille and her teammates and ignored both of them when they tried to stop her.

"Parker," Nate said in an undertone, "don't tase her. I'm serious."

"You're no fun."

"I wouldn't try it," Mireille said. "If you catch me off-guard, I'll kill you before I realize it's you." Then, she tipped her head. "And don't tase Kirika, either."

"Why? Will she kill me, too?"

"Yes. And then I'll have to listen to her fretting about it for the next week."

"You have very weird priorities," Parker told her.

"And we _don't_?" Sophie asked. "Can we get on with rescuing our friends, please?"

"Stay behind me," Mireille said, and it reminded Nate very strongly of Eliot - just as competent and deadly, if without the strain of absolute loyalty that made Eliot exceptional.

Still, even a temporary loyalty from Noir was exceptional in its own way.

"Are you really going to kill everybody?" Parker wanted to know.

"Anyone Kirika and your Eliot Spencer haven't killed yet, yes."

Parker let the 'your' part go, though it made her feel shiny inside. "Eliot doesn't kill."

"Unless he has to," Nate added.

Mireille was clearly surprised, though she hid it behind a mask of haughty amusement after a moment. "Perhaps he isn't the Eliot Spencer we knew after all."

"I just hope your friend didn't hurt him," Sophie said. She made her words biting, but they hid a very real fear.

Nate nudged her. "Don't worry. Eliot won't die as long as we need him."

Mireille huffed a tiny chuckle. "Sounds like my partner."

Suddenly, all sounds of fighting and all the gunshots stopped and there was nothing but silence in the enormous, dark house.

Mireille took off running, Parker, Nate, and Sophie on her heels, and Nate would hang up his hat as a mastermind forever if he couldn't tell that Mireille was just as dedicated to her friend as they were to theirs.

-==OOO==-

Kirika retrieved her own gun from where it had fallen in the fight. The Les Soldats who had converged on her position had all been well-armed; once her clip was out, she had made use of their weaponry instead, but the Beretta was an old friend, just as blood-stained as she. Even Mireille had admitted that other guns looked foreign in Kirika's hands.

Which was an admission of the highest order considering that this very type of gun had killed Mireille's parents.

But this was also the gun which had saved Mireille's life many times - and would continue to save her for as long as Kirika lived. It was Kirika's vow which had sustained her at the moment of denying her fate with Les Soldats forever, a vow that had been her first step back towards humanity and away from her dark, lonely path.

In the deathly quiet Kirika heard running and recognized Mireille's footsteps with the easy familiarity of the way she knew her own heartbeat. There were three others running close behind, but there was no panic in Mireille, nor was she fighting. Before they ever entered the open foyer, Kirika concluded that whoever followed Mireille had been selected to survive tonight's work.

"Kirika." Mireille looked around, automatically counting the bodies. She did not glance at her partner.

Kirika knew that wasn't Mireille's indifference that kept her eyes down - it was fear. And something more important.

"It's finished," Kirika said.

Only then did Mireille raise her gaze. Without a word they exchanged everything that needed to be known.

 _I'm not hurt._

 _I'm glad._

 _You're fine?_

 _Yes._

 _Everyone we meant to kill is dead on my end._

 _Mine, too._

 _We can stop being Noir for tonight._

 _Now we are just ourselves._

But the others were not privy to their silence. "Where are our friends?" Nate asked. Kirika noticed he barely looked at the carnage on the floor, that his searching was only for those he sought.

"Right here." Eliot appeared from around a corner. He shook his head. "Sorry. Comm got knocked out in the fight." He was already pushing it back into his ear.

"What about Hardison?" Parker asked. Eliot was okay - he was bloody, and he was actually still bleeding, but he was standing and talking so he was _okay_ \- which meant Hardison _couldn't_ be dead, but he wasn't here, either.

"He took his out." Eliot glanced back, then shrugged. "Figured you didn't need to hear him losing every lunch he ever ate."

"And I _ain't_ settin' foot back in there, either!" came Hardison's indignant, slightly-scratchy shout from behind Eliot. "How you all can just stand around like it ain't no thing is...is…"

Parker glanced at the two assassins and then strode without a downward glance for where Hardison was apparently losing another fight with his nausea. As she passed Eliot, she studied his face with all the concentration of listening to a safe's tumblers.

Eliot gave her a tiny nod. "He's fine."

"Of course he is."

Nate spoke up. "Sophie, why don't you go help Parker with Hardison?"

Kirika was glad when the other woman nodded and obeyed. She was looking rather green, too, and Kirika thought anyone so troubled at the result of violence should leave the scene and spare themselves the grief and guilt and fury and disgust that haunted her own dreams.

"This is Nathan Ford," Mireille said.

Kirika knew the name and the person, just as she had known Eliot Spencer. "Yuumura Kirika," she said.

Eliot joined them in one of the only clean places left on the floor between the bodies, his boots leaving bloody footprints beside Kirika's little shoes.

"Unless Parker had time to crack the safe before the abort call, we didn't get the files yet. But it might not matter. It ain't gonna be easy to move this kinda information when Les Soldats finds out what happened here."

"We'll manage," Nate told him. He was studying his hitter carefully. Eliot showed evidence of an extensive fistfight, and he had clearly been in a knife-fight as well from the long cuts along one forearm. But Nate had seen him in far worse condition many times.

And Eliot's eyes were steady. Not haunted as they'd been after Damien Moreau's warehouse.

The people he put down would get up.

Only Noir had killed tonight.

Nate looked at the two women. "Thank you, both of you. You didn't kill us when you could have, and you saved our lives." He looked at Eliot and gave a tiny shrug. "We were outgunned this time."

Kirika returned the tiny shrug and said nothing. But Mireille was looking at Nate. "What will you do now?"

"We came to steal some files the Mark was using to blackmail our client. Without the hard copies, our client will be safe. Unless you need them for something, we'll take them and get out of here."

"What about you?" Eliot asked them.

Mireille tossed her head. "We came to eliminate a threat and to gain some information of our own. We need to know who this man's partner was. He has been bankrolling an operation to try to take us down. We want it stopped."

"We'll hand over anything we find out that could help you," Nate said.

"Nate."

It was one word, but Nate heard volumes from Eliot's voice. The pair of them could speak entire _novels_ of conversations with long, silent glances, and right now Nate could hear everything his hitter wasn't saying. He could hear Eliot's request for privacy with the Noir women - no, it was more than that. He could hear Eliot asking for tacit permission to do something, something Eliot didn't want to do but felt he must. He could hear a desire not to let the rest of the team in on whatever Eliot's next move was going to be.

Nate wasn't the team's mastermind for nothing - he knew _exactly_ what Eliot was going to do now.

"Tell me why."

Eliot hadn't expected that pushback and Nate smirked slightly at his surprise. Usually those steady looks ended with nothing more than a tiny, almost imperceptible nod followed by action. But not this time. If Nate was losing his hitter, he would get an explanation.

Eliot's face twitched, fully aware of Nate's hidden smugness. "Because I owe them."

Nate's heart ached suddenly for what he must conclude was Eliot's history with Noir, with Les Soldats. For what he was agreeing to do now in recompense. For what it would do to him to fulfill that debt.

Nate had learned long ago that what he saw of Eliot's entire life was one long penance for something. Even now, Nate could only guess at its edges, at the vaguest shape of what horror lived inside Eliot's soul. Every assignment when Eliot took a hit he didn't have to, everything he denied himself - it was all punishment Eliot believed he deserved. Nate had watched his hitter topple on the brink of a battle, not with fists against overwhelming odds, but a fight within himself to keep going in the face of such demons clawing him apart from inside.

If Eliot hadn't been the strongest person and sternest soul Nate knew, he knew his hitter would have been lost before they ever found him.

And yet, Nate couldn't deny Eliot his inner sense of justice. He wanted to - _god_ did he want to - but Eliot was a man who walked his own path no matter how thorny and he would walk it alone if he had to. The only way Nate could ensure that Eliot was never alone was by letting him choose to walk over glass and fire while remaining solidly by his side to the end. As Eliot had stood by him countless times.

"Okay," Nate said. And he knew Eliot heard the rest. _Do what you have to. Go to war for the sake of reparation. I won't stop you. I'll shield the team from it if I can. I'll hold your place until you come back. I'll come after you if you don't come back. I'll come with you if you need me._

"Thanks."

And then Parker was there, looking upbeat as though they were sitting around a table discussing which building she wanted to jump off of next and not surrounded by the dead and dying.

"Does this mean I can finish getting into that safe?"

Eliot traded a long look and then a slight smirk with her. "Yeah. We're gonna need whatever you can find. Especially if Hardison's going to spend the next two days hiding under a blanket."

"I am not _hiding_!" Hardison shouted from around the corner.

"I'll see what I can get off Hardison's laptop until he's feeling better," Nate said. It took everything he had not to turn around and watch Eliot and Parker heading up the stairs with Noir ghosting along behind them.

 _Les Soldats. Black hands of death. Well, you can't have Eliot or Parker. Or Hardison or Sophie. They're mine._

 _Even if I have to lend Eliot to you for a little while._

 _I'll steal him back from Noir themselves if I have to._

-==OOO==-

Parker was still cooing at the safe when Mireille and Kirika exchanged a look that Eliot could read meant it was time for them to go. He waited until they turned to him before he gave them a nod and headed to crouch next to Parker.

"You got the files we came for?"

"Yup."

Eliot knew he couldn't sneak up on Parker, so he didn't bother. He simply reached out and plucked her earbud from its place. She blinked at him, but waited until he had removed his own and set them both down on top of the safe.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yeah." Eliot let out a breath. "Somethin' I gotta do."

"Without us?" Parker's eyes were some mix of suspicious and angry at his desertion.

"This ain't a job for anybody but a hitter, Parker." He paused, let out a breath. "We're different, remember. We do the things the others can't or shouldn't have to do. This time, I gotta do this one by myself."

Parker considered that. "Will you be okay?"

Eliot couldn't help the smile that escaped him. Parker could sound like she was a four-year-old baby sister and an eighty-year-old grandmother at exactly the same time and he loved her for it. "I'll come back from this. I promise."

"If you don't, I'll tase you during a briefing when you're not expecting it. And I'll let Hardison cook for a _year_."

Eliot didn't have to pretend to shiver. "You're evil sometimes. I think I like the crazy better."

She grinned. "Me too! So don't make me pull out the evil, 'kay?"

"You got a deal."

Eliot rose and moved towards Mireille and Kirika, only to feel a thin hand on his arm. He glanced back in time to get an armful of Parker.

"Come back no matter what," she whispered against his neck, "or I'm coming after you."

"Take care of 'em until I do," he whispered back.

"I promise I will."

Eliot released her and she let him go. But that didn't mean Parker didn't glare her craziest, angriest, someone-has-stolen-my-money glare at Mireille and Kirika.

"You better bring him back in one piece," she said. "Or we'll make you _really_ sorry."

Kirika actually smiled a tiny smile and nodded. Mireille's smile was warmer and more natural. But she addressed her words to Eliot.

"You've got good friends. You don't have to come with us."

"Yeah. I do."

Parker hated watching Eliot pull that shield of meanness over himself as he followed Mireille from the room. But then Kirika looked over her shoulder at Parker.

"We'll bring him home," she said before following Mireille and Eliot away.

When they were out of earshot, Parker scooped up the papers that were the reason they had come here at all. She missed having Hardison's complaining in her ear, though he had mostly been yelling at Nate about his precious laptop when Eliot had pulled her earbud out.

But Hardison would understand. Parker knew Eliot would expect her to plant his earbud back on his person during that hug, and he would probably find it pretty quickly. She was hoping he didn't think to look for hers too. Or, if he did, that he would leave it.

Eliot had promised to return. He might not want them to track him just in case it went bad.

But Parker had promised to follow him if he needed her, and either he would return her earbud on his own or she would claim it from him before she tased him for making her worry.

-==OOO==-

Eliot squatted beside Kirika, assessing the condo building from the outside. Without a team in his head, he could really listen, really see everything with the clarity of a sniper's gaze. And he knew that Noir was just as sharp as himself if not infinitely sharper.

They didn't bother to lay out a plan or discuss the options.

Eliot looked at the gun in his hands and he hated it. But Mireille was alive and he had tried to kill her. His team was alive and Kirika could have killed them all.

He owed them this.

Noir had saved his team. He owed them _everything_.

"Let's go," Kirika said, low and urgent and stark as the bite of a blade.

Eliot rose and followed them to become a creature of Les Soldats one more time.

-==OOO==-

"Tell them I am sorry."

Eliot looked at Kirika and shook his head. "Not your fault."

"You wouldn't have gotten shot if you hadn't come with us."

He shrugged. It was true, but it didn't matter. "Glad I came, though."

"So are we," Mireille said.

Eliot looked at the blood smearing across his hands from the bandaging he had wrapped around the deep graze of a bullet at his temple. He had a few other burns from near-misses, but nothing worse. And the head-wound, while it had bled a torrent, was a small price to pay.

Mireille was alive because he had been there to take it in her stead.

"We're square," Eliot said. "Aren't we?"

"No." Kirika shook her head. "Now we owe you. Not just for that." She looked at the bandages wrapped around his forehead. "For taking down Moreau, too."

"That was my team. Not just me."

"Either way." Mireille shrugged. "We still owe you. And them."

Eliot considered for a moment. Then he held out his right hand.

"Then I'll ask you to do something for me in return."

Noir stared at him, unblinking, with identical expressions of steady perception and deep understanding. They knew what he would ask, of course they did, but it didn't matter unless he made the request.

"If anything ever happens to me, I want you to protect my team. Until they find another hitter they can trust."

"Are you sure they'll accept us?" Mireille asked. "We're not going to stop being what we are for them."

"It won't be easy." Eliot knew that was an understatement, but it didn't matter. "But I'd rather they be alive to be mad at you for killing people than the other way around."

Kirika nodded once. "We'll protect them."

"And if you ever need help you can trust, you can call me." Eliot's hand was still extended and he didn't look away from their eyes. He wondered if they could see the same battle-brittle ice in his that he saw in them both.

Mireille took his hand and Kirika folded hers over both of them.

Kirika closed her eyes and recited, "The man within the man, the love within the love, the sin within the sin."

Eliot remembered it, remembered that line from Les Soldats and what it meant. When he had been a hired gun, and even Moreau's dog, it had never fit him so well as it did now.

Once, he had committed sin up on sin, killing all those in his path without mercy. He had believed the philosophy of Les Soldats - that if love can lead to murder, surely hatred can bring salvation.

He had believed it, and he had killed, and it had almost destroyed him.

Now he was a hitter who loved his team enough to kill to keep them safe.

Eliot looked at their linked hands. All three were spotted with blood, his as much as theirs. But it was impossible to know how much of that blood was shed from their victims and how much had been from patching up their injuries. How much represented death and how much represented healing.

The black hands of Noir were as dark as ever, as were Eliot's own.

But Eliot's hands had also held Nate's plans, had offered Hardison his stupid orange drink, had shared cake with Parker, had been cradled by Sophie.

His hands were stained with blood and death, but they were no longer empty. Nor was his life. Nor was his heart.

And if anybody could clean the rest of the blood from his skin, Eliot knew it would be the four idiots on his team who even now were probably neck-deep in trouble and waiting for their hitter to bail them out again.

And he would. No matter what.

It would always be the same black sin to kill - but Eliot now knew that the greater sin was to let those he had chosen as his own be killed instead. He could live with taking more lives, if he had no other option. He could _not_ live with losing any member of his team. _Ever_.

However, if he fell one day in their defense, now he could die without fear.

Because the black hands of Noir would pick up his sword and continue his fight for the lives that meant everything.

And maybe, if that ever happened, even Noir would find their souls less dark with four stupid, infuriating, too-trusting, altogether baffling thieves to reteach them how to be clean.

As they had shown Eliot.

As they were probably waiting to show him now.

Sophie would be fretting, furious that Nate let him go but unwilling to actually blame Eliot for making the choice - right up until she saw the bandages and then she would be furious with him, too. Maybe he'd get slapped.

Hardison would be doing that geeky-worry thing he did, but, knowing Hardison, the hacker already knew all about the fight from street cameras or satellites or smartphones or whatever else he tapped into in order to watch over them all like a scrawny mother hen.

Parker's worry would be different and unidentifiable, but Eliot knew it would involve him getting poked in the gun-burns for at least a week and that would be _if_ Parker was feeling cheerful.

And Nate...Nate would peer at Eliot with those knowing eyes and wouldn't say a word unless Eliot did first, but he would see and he would understand and Eliot would feel less alone just because the mastermind could read his heart and live with what he found there.

Eliot felt the blood drying on his hands, sticking to Mireille and Kirika in a bond of death, and he didn't bother to resist the smile that burned deep inside his chest anyway.

It was time to go home and get back to the real work. To being a hitter. To being a teammate. To being a friend. To being a _family_. And he had a feeling Mireille and Kirika felt exactly the same way about each other.

Their hands, his hands, were black with blood and death.

But in that blackness lived the power to protect the ones who turned his darkness into light. And that was all that mattered in the end.


End file.
